M&D, the Internet&W.A.S.T.E

[David Casseres]

Bill Burns sez

>...Anubis in Egyptian mythology, as I think
>I noted before, is parallel to Hermes in Greek mythology. He was the
>courier to Zeus, but he was also the god of commerce. So in the Greek
>mythos, is there a connection between communication and the marketplace?
>
>Like Anubis, he also conducted souls of the dead to the underworld. He had
>a reputation for mischief (especially involving his brother Apollo--the Sun
>god), and he possessed power over dreams and sleep. His symbol, the
>caduceus, can be seen as the embodiment of certain medical principles--a
>staff with twin snakes, the opposition of toxicology and pharmacology (yep,
>I'm probably stretching it a bit here). But I think the interesting thing
>here is that the entity who has power over life and death, over commerce,
>and over communication is one and the same--a-and he has an antagonistic
>relationship with the sun god to boot. 
>
>Well, Henry, there's something goin' on here, but I'm not sure what it is.

I'm not either, but the OTHER thing about Hermes was, well, his thing.  In some aspect or other he was portrayed all over Athens by statues called "Herms" that were a very sketchy human form with a huge (and more detailed) erection.  Was he about to hear something?  Doesn't the combination of that symbolically reduced humanity with that symbolically enlarged hardon remind us of our pal Slothrop?  A-and does it shed any light if we think of Slothrop as a messenger, a herald?  I have a hard time connecting commerce, though, much less toxicology and pharmacology (nice idea bout those snakes, though).  There might be some connection between the staff and that A4, though, since we already know about the stiff and the A4.  (& the stoff & all that stuff.  Sorry.)

A-and I don't know for sure about Slothrop conducting any dead foax to the other side, though there is all that traffic in the other direction going on.  And has anyone else mused over the possibility that that S in S-Gerät might possibly stand for Something else that Slothrop is Seeking, like Some of that Soul, or Seele? ...

(Can't remember the details but wasn't it a bunch of overexcited academics that got in all that trouble by running around Athens knocking the dicks off those herms.  Watch out for those Grove guys, all you ithyphallic antiprophets of dysentropy!)



Cheers,
David